Apple Pay rival CurrentC to start rolling out next month

CurrentC, an electronic payment system backed by many of the biggest retailers in the U.S., will begin a limited public roll-out in August, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.The smartphone-based technology is intended to rival payment services from Apple, Google and Samsung, and an August launch would be in line with the “mid-2015” schedule the company told IDG News Service in April.CurrentC will offer the same type of convenience as its rivals, enabling consumers to pay at participating retail outlets by phone. But rather than rely on the phone’s wireless NFC (near-field communications) chip, the first-generation CurrentC involves the customer scanning a barcode on a retail terminal to initiate payment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Honda’s trippy Dream Drive is an awesome use of virtual reality

As I climbed into the Honda Pilot SUV, I didn’t have high hopes.I was trying out Honda’s Dream Drive, a prototype technology that pairs an Oculus Rift headset with data about the car’s movements to produce a virtual reality simulation.The car was going to drive around the parking lot at Honda’s new R&D center here in Mountain View, California, and the headset would let me gaze into another world as we drove along.“I bet it will be a race track with cars whizzing by,” I thought as I put on the headset. Perhaps I’m jaded, but I’ve tried many VR demonstrations and while fun they often feel a bit lacking and uninspired.And sure enough, there was the race track. I could see spectators to the left, the pits to the right, and sponsorship banners (Honda’s, of course) on a gantry above the first straight.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook prevails in shareholder lawsuit over IPO

An appeals court has ruled that shareholders cannot sue Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg in a case that accused the company of withholding key financial information from the public until after its IPO.The shareholders alleged that Facebook had failed to share its projections for mobile ad sales prior to the offering, disclosing them only to analysts who then relayed the information to certain investors.The plaintiffs complained that Facebook’s stock was “hammered” after it went public and the market learned of the lower forecasts. Facebook’s shares opened at just over US$42 on the Nasdaq on May 18, 2012, and fell to the low $30-range in the ensuing days. The stock has since risen strongly, trading at around $96 on Friday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Show 247 – ThousandEyes Network Visibility – Sponsored

How do you manage networks you don't control? Our sponsor ThousandEyes joins us to talk about how to get visibility into every network your organization relies on, enabling you to resolve issues faster, improve application delivery, and run your business more smoothly.

Author information

Ethan Banks

Co-host at Packet Pushers

Ethan Banks, CCIE #20655, has been managing networks for higher ed, government, financials and high tech since 1995. Ethan co-hosts the Packet Pushers Podcast, which has seen over 3M downloads and reaches over 10K listeners. With whatever time is left, Ethan writes for fun & profit, studies for certifications, and enjoys science fiction. @ecbanks
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The post Show 247 – ThousandEyes Network Visibility – Sponsored appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

PlexxiPulse—Disrupting The IT Channel

We’re honored that CRN has included Plexxi in this year’s 2015 Emerging Vendors List, an annual list that features up-and-coming technology vendors that have launched innovative new products that generate opportunities within the channel. Our team believes that the next generation of IT is upon us and we are honored to be recognized for our innovative solutions for the next generation of IT. To learn more about our predictions for what’s next in IT, take a look at this recent blog post by Bob Noel, Director of Solutions Marketing here at Plexxi.

We are continuing to partner with forward thinking channel partners to carve a new path in the market and to make our solutions widely accessible. Thank you to CRN for the distinction and congratulations to all of this year’s Emerging Vendors!

Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Enjoy!

Forbes: Big Data Will Select Your Next Strategic Partner
By Christine Crandall
In an increasingly competitive but cost conscious world businesses are always looking for new ways to gain competitive advantages and revenue streams.  Businesses are likely to be more successful in achieving their goals if they Continue reading

Hillary Clinton sent classified information via personal email

A government investigation has concluded that Hillary Clinton sent classified information through a personal email account while she served as Secretary of State, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.The internal review of Clinton’s use of a personal account by the Inspector General for the intelligence community examined just 40 emails of the thousands sent through the account and found four of them contained information that should have been classified as “secret,” the newspaper said. None of the emails were marked as such.At the time they were sent, that was the second highest level of classification in the U.S. government.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US govt guide aims to bolster security of mobile devices used in health care

Health care providers are increasingly using smartphones and tablets for tasks such as accessing and transferring medical records, and submitting prescriptions, but these devices may not be secure enough to protect sensitive medical information from hackers.That’s the conclusion of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, whose cybersecurity center released a draft guide Thursday to help health IT professionals shore up the mobile devices.“Mobile devices are being used by many providers for health care delivery before they have implemented safeguards for privacy and security,” the agency said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: DDoS attack size is getting bigger, security firm says

DDoS attacks aren't going away anytime soon. In fact, they're getting bigger, according to network security company Arbor Networks. But there's good news for potential attacks in the Internet of Things arena—some heat is off there.DDoS, or Distributed Denial-of-Service, attacks are where numerous compromised computers are used to target a single system. In simple terms, the sheer size of the blast of traffic overwhelms the system.Large attacks Arbor Networks says that "while very large attacks are what makes headlines, average attacks are approaching one gigabit per second, and are rapidly becoming a real problem for more and more enterprises."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chrysler recalls 1.4M cars that were vulnerable to remote hacking

Chrysler has launched a recall of 1.4 million recent model cars that were vulnerable to being remotely accessed and controlled by hackers.The recall comes days after Wired reported a demonstration by hackers in which they were able to access and control a Chrysler Jeep as it was being driven.The hack detailed in the Wired article took place under somewhat controlled conditions—the driver, a Wired writer knew that it was about to happen—but it occurred on the busy Interstate 64 near St. Louis. It culminated in the vehicle slowing down and causing something of a traffic obstacle for cars behind.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chrysler recalls 1.4M cars that were vulnerable to remote hacking

Chrysler has launched a recall of 1.4 million recent model cars that were vulnerable to being remotely accessed and controlled by hackers.The recall comes days after Wired reported a demonstration by hackers in which they were able to access and control a Chrysler Jeep as it was being driven.The hack detailed in the Wired article took place under somewhat controlled conditions—the driver, a Wired writer knew that it was about to happen—but it occurred on the busy Interstate 64 near St. Louis. It culminated in the vehicle slowing down and causing something of a traffic obstacle for cars behind.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Even without breaches, don’t count on websites to hide that you have an account with them

Companies often fail to hide if an email address is associated with an account on their websites, even if the nature of their business calls for this and users implicitly expect it.This has been highlighted by data breaches at online dating sites AdultFriendFinder.com and AshleyMadison.com, which cater to people looking for one-time sexual encounters or extramarital affairs. Both were vulnerable to a very common and rarely addressed website security risk known as account or user enumeration.In the Adult Friend Finder hack, information was leaked on almost 3.9 million registered users, out of the 63 million registered on the site. With Ashley Madison, hackers claim to have access to customer records, including nude pictures, conversations and credit card transactions, but have reportedly leaked only 2,500 user names so far. The site has 33 million members.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bitcoin companies move ahead in Africa

Efforts to get Bitcoin off the ground in Africa received a boost this week as BitX announced it has raised $4 million in funding.Africa is a market ripe for Bitcoin: it’s underserved by financial institutions due to the high cost of having a physical presence like ATMs, bank branches and remittance offices, according Werner van Rooyen, head of business development and growth at BitX.The company was founded in 2013 and runs a bitcoin exchange and provides wallets for the cryptocurrency. Its headquarters are in Singapore and it has offices South Africa, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia and Nigeria. The Series A funding round was led by South Africa’s Naspers Group.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intro to Docker Webinar: Q&A

Many great questions popped up in this week’s Introduction to Docker webinar where we covered the basics of the Docker technology, discussed the Continuous Integration (CI) use case and a product demo of Docker Trusted Registry and Docker Engine. Instead of keeping … Continued

French surveillance law is constitutional, highest court says

A surveillance law rushed through the French parliament in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in January is constitutional, the country’s highest court ruled late Thursday. The decision gives law enforcers and intelligence agencies the power to gather communications metadata—who is communicating with whom, where, and when—in real time, with few restrictions.As the law on surveillance progressed through parliament, the government declared it “urgent”, meaning elected representatives in the Senate and National Assembly had only one opportunity to amend it instead of the usual two. They waved it through anyway. Some parliamentarians challenged parts of the law on constitutional grounds, calling on the Constitutional Council to give its verdict.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

French surveillance law is constitutional, highest court says

A surveillance law rushed through the French parliament in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in January is constitutional, the country’s highest court ruled late Thursday. The decision gives law enforcers and intelligence agencies the power to gather communications metadata—who is communicating with whom, where, and when—in real time, with few restrictions.As the law on surveillance progressed through parliament, the government declared it “urgent”, meaning elected representatives in the Senate and National Assembly had only one opportunity to amend it instead of the usual two. They waved it through anyway. Some parliamentarians challenged parts of the law on constitutional grounds, calling on the Constitutional Council to give its verdict.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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